Lady of Shadows by Amber Argyle

Author:Amber Argyle [Argyle, Amber]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Starling Publishing
Published: 2020-06-11T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Storm

Gendrin gave her his belt and knife. “No one should be in the forest without a weapon.”

She took it, the leather warm from his body, the tooling worn. The knife was as jewel-like as the sword. It didn’t fit. Gendrin pushed the knife through the leather to make a new hole. Caelia wrapped it around herself and tightened the buckle. He nodded in approval.

He took the pot of water from the fire and left while she washed up as best she could. There wasn’t much she could do about her dress—not unless she wanted to spend the day naked or wet. But her skin and hair were mostly clean. When she’d finished, they started out.

The forest encased Caelia in a living wall, blocking the sky and making her feel small and vulnerable. Anything could be hiding just out of sight, watching her. She jumped at an abrupt bird call. Then again as another burst out of some brush to her right.

“That sound is a copperbill,” Gendrin said. “The other bird is a forest hen—they’re delicious. If I’d been paying better attention, we could have had it for lunch.”

He named each forest sound and pointed to edible plants and poisonous ones. With the steady litany of his voice, her fear gradually abated. The pain eased too. The more she moved, the more her muscles limbered up.

As the day went on, the wind picked up until it gusted, the trees swaying violently above her, fall leaves ripped away en masse and tripping over each other on the ground.

They stopped for lunch, huddled between the roots of a tree as they ate dried bread and meat. The warm sunshine had been replaced by a bitter wind. Caelia kept tight hold of her cloak, her fingers numb with cold.

By the time evening came on, black clouds boiled over the blue sky, leaving them in perpetual twilight. Thunder cracked and lightning sizzled. The rain sheeted in a downpour that left Caelia soaked in seconds. At least I’m cleaner, she thought miserably.

Gendrin stopped, his mouth fixed in a grim line. He shouted to be heard over the wind, “Wait here.”

Before she could protest, he shimmied up a tree. She watched him, the tree cavorting about like a drunk man tethered to the ground. He tied up his pod and fixed his pack to a branch. When he finally dropped back down, his expression was grim.

She backed away from him. “Are you mad? We can’t go into a tree in a storm. It will be blown down or struck with lightning.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

She shook her head, rain streaking down her face. “There has to be somewhere we can shelter. An overhang or cave.”

“The beasts can’t sense us in the trees.”

“Surely they’re as eager to escape the storm as everything else.”

He looked about nervously and held out his hand. “Trust me, Caelia.”

He’d already saved her life once. He’d learned her deepest, darkest secret and hadn’t treated her any differently because of it. She did trust him.

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